POUNDS

Every yearly checkup, I would alwaysargue with my pediatrician and her scale.I was nine and told her it read 155, not 156.I still have days where I check the scalemore often than the time. I sometimes step on itand wait until the number drops a decimal.I am a senior in college and still rush fromthe showers to my room. I lost my virginityin high school and remember spooning herwith a sucked-in stomach. I rememberregretting leaving the lights on. I’ve leftevery summer in a farmer’s tan.I jump up and down in the showerto see what I can get rid of. I spentsophomore year of college learninghow to vomit without waking the neighbors.I still don’t wake up the neighbors.I like to post old photos of meon Facebook — in each onemy cheeks look like they are spilling outof my face like they were embarrassed to be there.No one suspects someone who posts these pictureswould do the things I’ve done in the bathroom stallsafter 2am, because I have abs now — because it’s notawkward anymore to say the word fat whenI’m in the room — because I don’t look likea before photo for a weight loss plan — becauseit’s been years since I had one of those argumentswith my doctors. During our last oneshe asked me if I was okay.I told her my shoes were on.She told me I was healthy.I told her my outfit weighedhalf a pound.She said I was fine.I told herI weighed itbefore I came.

ACNE

I wipe the mirrorwhen I’m done.There is a civil warhappening on my face.I take my fingernailsand decapitatea row of whiteheadslining my cheek.Pus-filled fireworkstear the sky whenI walk my nailsto my nose andexhume the bodies.A geyser ofoff-white limbsspit from myoil-slickedgravesite.I confusemy smilefor a cemetery.The frecklesof blooddry up the wayroses for a forgottengrandmother do.Ten pus-filledelephants-in-the-roompulse on my face,how are yousupposed to lookelsewhere?

Photo of Namkyu Oh

Namkyu Oh is a Korean American poet from New Jersey. He recently graduated from Princeton University where he studied politics and poetry. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gravel Magazine, Kweli Journal, Midway Journal and others. He currently stays emotional in New York City.